10 Switch Games We Played at BitSummit 2024 — Here’s What We Thought

BitSummit 2024 is here and we’ve got details on all the best games we saw.

If you are not familiar with BitSummitThis is a gaming conference dedicated to indie developers from all over the world. Taking place in central Kyoto every July, there is no better place to see the latest indie developments from both Japan and the rest of the world. This year it is branded BitSummit Drift and there are many great games like previous years. For example, last year there was Animal Wellthat we scored 10 pointsand a year before that, the star Meg’s Monster from Odencat gets BitSummit love.

Finding unreleased Switch games at BitSummit is harder than you might think; there are hundreds of great games being showcased, but most have yet to confirm whether they’re coming to Nintendo’s handheld hybrid. A constant refrain we heard was that Switch versions were planned, but not confirmed until the PC version launched.

However, we’ve done the necessary due diligence and found 10 great titles that you can definitely play on the Nintendo Switch at some point in the near future!

Cassette Boy looks like a 2D action adventure similar to The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening But there are some tricky perspective puzzles that make it one of the most creative games we saw at BitSummit.

During gameplay, we could rotate the camera, and when the camera rotated, anything hidden behind other objects would no longer exist. For example, if you placed a block on top of an impassable gate and moved the camera so that the block obscured it, you could walk through as if the gate had never been there. The developers call this the ‘Schrödinger System’.

We played both story mode and challenge mode; story mode required us to chase a black cat named Luna, smash slimes with a sword and shoot arrows to hit switches, all while solving puzzles one by one while rotating the camera so much that we got a little dizzy.

Somehow we missed discovering this hand drawing. Earth– an inspiring adventure until the last day of BitSummit. And we’re glad we found it, because it would be a shame if we didn’t get to play it.

Cricket: Jae’s Really Strange Game stars, as you’d expect, a boy named Jae on a journey to rescue his mother from the moon after she passes away – a gripping story that promises a profound story.

Jae teams up with a group of friends to battle giant dandelions and other imaginative enemies in a hand-drawn art style reminiscent of the fluidity of other anime-inspired games like Cup headHowever, it’s the game’s engaging content that has us most excited to play Cricket when it launches on August 15.

We talked about Devil School before but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t grab the attention of everyone passing by with its vibrant pixel art and great premise. Inspired by Italian horror movies and manga, we can’t help but compare it to Character 3or more precisely Shin Megami Tensei: Demon Slayeras we sat down to play this strategy game featuring students fighting demons.

We found that the battles themselves set Demonschool apart from its obvious inspirations, as they’re less like a chess game with individual turns and more like a puzzle where you arrange your characters around the field before seeing all their actions play out at once, complete with some anime-style welcome screens as characters team up. You won’t have much time to try this game out, as Demonschool launches on September 13.

This adorable little game caught our attention with its vibrant color palette and adorable protagonist, Shell. On her quest to find her mother after the world’s population flees underground, Shell receives a drill from a little frog guy named Ribbert, allowing her to dig deep just like you would in a faster-paced game like Shovel Knight. Aurora EternalOtherwise, it’s a relaxing exploration adventure, with the staff emphasizing that the game is completely violence-free.

We had a great time as the cute characters we met had some pretty witty dialogues, and the relaxing background music helped soothe our overwhelmed senses on the chaotic stage.

While most games have modest booths with a single screen and a Nintendo Switch or two, Lead Dominating a major avenue with two giant televisions, attracting a curious crowd. Forestriker is a kung-fu roguelite where you can use foresight to practice your attacks against drunken enemies as they try to overwhelm you. We can use foresight as many times as we want before playing on the real stage, leading to some truly epic kung-fu moments.

The lengthy tutorial shows us that Forestriker is more or less a puzzle game, as we learn how to dodge enemies so they crash into each other or equip weapons to block their attacks. Then we learn that modifiers make each run unique. You’d think using foresight for each encounter would make the game easy, but we haven’t even reached the boss of the first area before our kung-fu hero meets his end.

Mouse catch is the next title of Odencat Meg’s Monsterthat we absolutely love it because it has a story that is both funny and heartbreaking. Mousebusters looks like many similar movies, starring a little mouse trying to save the residents of a house from the darkness growing in their hearts by fighting some creepy demons. Yes, you read that right.

The game is out now on mobile devices, but in a brief meeting with developer Daigo Sato, we learned that he’s reworking the game to better suit consoles, expanding the map and world size while adding a new combat system. Given how much we loved Sato’s last game, we’re excited for what he claims is a “touching story that will make you cry.”

It wouldn’t be a BitSummit list without a truly Japanese game. Created by indie developer Hinuko Shima, Rainbow Sea inspired by a Japanese legend Seven Lucky Gods. Playing as a young girl who mysteriously appears on the ship carrying the gods’ treasure, you will spend time learning about them while cooking and fishing.

The first thing that caught our eye was the gorgeous pixel art style and the suggestion that – if we weren’t careful and lied to these gods – we would be trapped inside a mirror. If we succeeded, we would become a god. Shima told us that there were twenty-two true endings to achieve.

Rhythm Rabbit is a humble game that stars a cute bunny rabbit as he jumps to win a carrot at the end of each short level. The musical notes indicate the number of jumps the bunny will make, and unless you’re jumping into an obstacle, there’s no way to avoid jumping. However, what makes Rhythm Rabbit much What makes it harder than it looks is all the variables in the game. For example, jumping into a mole hole will take you back to the start, and going anywhere near a bat will completely reverse the direction the rabbit jumped in.

Developer Mark Walters said people either loved it or hated it because it quickly became a difficult challenge. We were definitely in the first camp, playing for quite a while until we reached a stage that combined all the different variables we had experienced so far. A small crowd actually formed, watching us fall into rivers and pits until we finally reached the coveted carrot and got a round of cheers.

We sat down with YummyYummyTummy’s Spencer Yip to check out his team’s boss-rush sandbox game Robo feverstarring a pink-haired girl and a blue-haired boy as they fight against and collect funny-named robots like Sir Codesalot.

The coolest feature Yip showed us was how you can create your own robot boss and come up with a cool password to share with other players. These bosses have a number of stats to control, such as their power and how creative they are. More importantly, you can equip them with tons of different weapons and special moves, which can then be modified as well. They have Super Mario Maker– system like where you have to beat the boss before it loads up, thankfully. We love the creativity shown with these silly robots and look forward to creating our own typewriter-based boss to drop explosive peppers.

We saved the best for last! We talked about Tako no Himitsu: The Secret Ocean before – how could we not when it’s a Game Boy Advance-inspired adventure that takes notes from Yellow sun And Terranigma? After all, you can choose to play with the GBA frame surrounding the screen. Developed by Christophe Galati, Tako no Himitsu is quite different in terms of mechanics compared to the previous title Help me, Tako! even though it takes place in the same universe.

This is definitely one of the most charming and nostalgic games we played on the show floor. We chose between two of the six available characters that would eventually form a party to get a quick slice of this action-RPG. We played as Mylene, a singer who infiltrated a temple with her guardian Buuto, switching between them as we took down cultists and spirits while solving puzzles and being heavily influenced by nostalgia.